When Trying Isn't Enough

An honest look at ourselves when leaders fall

You may have heard some difficult news this week about the mistakes of a prominent Christian leader, or you might not have. Either way, you’ve probably experienced looking up to someone, thinking they have it all together, only to be disappointed by choices they made. Especially when those choices were recurring patterns of hidden sin, rather than just a one off mistake.

I'm not here to judge or analyse their story. These are real people, and it’s real heartbreak. We can pray for those affected, and we can use this as a moment to examine our own hearts.

Because it's way too easy to sit back and judge from a distance. But these are real humans who make mistakes. Just like we do.

So these moments provide us with opportunities to examine our own hearts. 

And straightaway these moments remind me of the fact that I can do all the right things, and look like I have it all together, whilst actually being far from God.

And as a perfectionist and someone who can fall into the performance trap very easily, I really don’t like this. It would be so much easier if we could measure our relationship with Jesus by our performance, but that just isn’t how faith works.

Behaviour control

We know that when we follow Jesus, we continue to be transformed, and a byproduct of that over time is that we do more good works and sin less.

But, we can also try to muster up our own good works and try our hardest not to sin. All in our own strength. Without the power of the Holy Spirit. 

And we can keep that up for a while. I know that I can really easily slip into this performance mindset because I know what I should and shouldn’t do.

But this isn’t transformed living, it’s behaviour control. Simply relying on our willpower to look like we’re in a good place with God.

Looking at only our behaviour, it’s hard to know the difference. And we shouldn’t be too concerned trying to work it out. That’s another way to fall into the performance trap. Instead we’re invited to set our sights on Jesus, and that will inevitably lead to the transformation we’d otherwise be striving for and trying to evaluate.

Romans 7 - The Law

Romans is a powerhouse of a letter from Paul, where he basically lays out the gospel. In chapter 7 he goes into depth of the theological equivalent of behaviour control: the law.

Through this chapter, Paul describes the problem of the law. Not that the law isn’t good, it’s perfect. But our response to it, as fallen humans, isn’t.

The very fact that something becomes off limits, provokes us to want to do it. That’s the state of our rebellious hearts. We all know that if you’re told to not push the red button everything within you wants to know what the red button does. 

There’s a funny story of a hotel with a lake outside of it. They put up signs on their balconies saying please don’t fish from the balcony. Lots of people started to fish from their balcony causing a problem for the neighbouring rooms and damage to the hotel. They took the signs down, and barely anyone fished from the balcony.

The law is like this. It tells us what is right and wrong. That’s a good thing. Except for the fact that human hearts are drawn to what is off limits. And so through the law, our sin wasn’t only exposed, it was provoked. 

Paul goes on to tell us about his struggles as he attempts to follow the law in his own strength. It’s hard! He does what he doesn’t want to do, but doesn’t do what he does want to do.

This is the reality of our lives when we take the list of right and wrongs and simply attempt to live by them through our own willpower.

For much of the chapter, Paul is focused on himself. This is hard, sin dwells in me, the will to do right is present in me but how to perform that will I’m not sure where that is, I can’t find it.

And then he says the turning point: (Romans 7:24)

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?

His eyes are turned elsewhere, someone will surely be able to rescue Him.

Yes - Jesus. 

Romans 7:25 (NIV)

Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

There’s victory because of Jesus. He didn’t just come to earth to show us how to live by the rules, he came to fulfil the law, pay for the price for our sin, to defeat death so that we could enter back into relationship with God and be equipped and transformed to live the lives we were always intended to live. But this time with his power, not our own.

So how do we actually live in this transformation rather than behaviour control?

How does Jesus actually deliver us? What does transformation look like?

Well, it isn’t actually about what we do, it’s about what God does. Starting with what happens when we choose to follow Him.

This is predicted all the way back in the old testament in the book of Ezekiel, more than 500 years before Jesus was born.

Ezekiel 36:26-27 (NIV)

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. 

Ezekiel is prophesying about the new covenant that’s made possible through the work of Jesus.

A new heart and a new spirit - that’s the promised transformation that we find as we follow Jesus.

Our old stubborn hearts will be replaced with hearts of flesh that can feel and yield and surrender and change.

And we’ll be filled with His Spirit. And as we are filled, we will begin to be transformed, and that will help us to keep the law.

So the law is still important. Of course it is, it’s a good and right way to live. But, rather than just attempting on our own to live in the right way, God promised way back then that He’d give us a new heart and fill us with His Spirit and as a result of that we would begin to live in the right way.

Now, living in the right way sounds a bit ruley and, let’s be honest, boring. So let me switch out the words. The law, and these rules, are not just the right way to live, they’re the best way to live.

Remember that God made us, he knows our ins and outs, the best ways for us to live, our optimum growing conditions, like a gardener knows how much water and light a plant needs and what kind of soil would be best. These rules, are that for us. The ideal environment for us to flourish and mature and become complete.

Not so boring now. 

We couldn’t do it on our own, so he sent his son.

The Trap

So why oh why do we still insist on doing it on our own!? I honestly don’t know my own heart enough to say for sure. 

But I know the kinds of traps of thinking I fall into when I start to depend more on myself. Maybe you can relate.

For me, it’s almost always the trap of shame. I hate doing things wrong. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say, I hate when I’m found out for doing something wrong. Exposure is the bit I hate.

As a human, that’s a pretty hard reality to live in because I’m going to do things wrong. Even if they aren’t intentional. I’m human. 

And so when I do, and especially when I feel exposed, I spiral a bit. And instead of coming closer to God, I can back away and try to sort it out on my own so I can come back to him with solutions instead of problems. 

Like, “I made a mistake God but all good I’ve fixed it now.” 

Or, if I can’t actually fix it, I try to distract God from it through performance. I’m only just noticing this pattern to be honest, God highlighted it to me recently. I’ll actually double down on the other parts of my good behaviour. I’ll over-serve, over-give, go all out in making sure I’m the best Christian there could possibly be.

I kind of imagine myself on a stage and on the one side the scenery has fallen down or the lights have gone off or whatever, the crew just aren’t having a good time of it, so I’m on the other side of the stage, dancing my little legs off, singing my heart out, desperately trying to make you look at me instead of the mess.

And both solutions - sorting it myself or distracting God from the problem - aren’t solutions at all. They’re just shame responses. 

Instead, if you find yourself in this trap, the invitation we have is to come to Jesus and let Him acknowledge that he already sees the problem, he’s already paid for the mistake, and hear the truth that it isn’t distance from him that we need, it’s intimacy.

I love the C S Lewis quote about this. I know how many times can I use this quote on the podcast. At least one more. Before Jesus, you were an old derelict house, but Jesus is moving in. Dwelling in a new one.

He writes:

Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.

This is the reality of Ezekiel 36, being given a new heart and spirit. It’s not just the old you patched up, it’s something new.

How to Position Yourself

So how do we live out our transformation?

We’ve agreed that transformation is done to us, we’ve acknowledged shame can get in the way, but surely there’s something for us to do too?

Yes, in a way. We’re still responsible to position ourselves for transformation.

We know that we can move away from God and start depending on ourselves, so what does it 

look like to move towards God and start depending on Him?

You secretly know the answer, because it’s the answer to most of these kinds of questions: spend time with Jesus.

That could mean in prayer, it could mean in the Bible, it could mean in worship.

2 Cor 3:18 (NIV)

And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

Willpower isn’t the way to transformation, time with Jesus is. Beholding him, which just means not to glance over at Him, but to study Him. 

And maybe to that you’ll say “ah but Jo, in order to spend time with Jesus, that requires willpower too.”

I agree.

But again, this is the difference between behaviour control and transformation. We don’t want to just start adding more rules back on to ourselves like a tick-list for being a good Christian.

Our transformation is a self-propelling cycle, and none of it operates outside of the power of the Holy Spirit.

As we spend time with Jesus, we are transformed, as we are transformed our hearts are changed. We begin to want sin less and want God more, and that in turn draws us to Him again, and the cycle continues.

So even our ambition to meet with Jesus more has to be powered by the Holy Spirit. Praying “God give me a heart that longs for you more”. Waking up and saying “Lord empower me to spend time with you today”. “Jesus, help me to consider you throughout the day.”

This isn’t a quick process. But the way of Jesus is slow. 

I can assure you that you will find no way to speed up transformation. It’s slow. But it’s also inevitable when we spend time with Jesus. 

So if you haven’t already, you may as well start now.

Review

Let me sum this up.

The key to walking with Jesus isn't to keep to a set of rules and behaviours, it's to spend time with Him, be transformed by Him, and then live and love from that increasingly transformed place.

If I only look at controlling my behaviours I'm going to slip up more and more because I cannot live a Godly life on my own.

I need the power and presence of the holy spirit to transform me and produce the grace needed to walk a godly life.

Which is promised in 2 Peter 1:3 (NIV)

His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

We have everything required for life and godliness.

But are we using it?

If we rely on willpower alone, no.

If my aim for the day is to not sin, then I'm going to fail. That isn't enough. I don't want to live my days desperately trying not to sin. I want to live continually transformed, with a heart that fears God, that longs to please Him, to live righteously by his Spirit, and therefore to increasingly hate the sin that separates me from Him.

To live not with a “what can I get away with mindset” but with a “How close can I get to Jesus?” mindset. I need Jesus every moment. 

When I slip into relying on my own willpower, behaviour-based Christianity, I actually sin more.  And it's not because I'm not trying hard enough. It's because all the effort in the world will not fix my brokenness. Only God can do that.  

Why would I want to walk alone?

There is grace when we slip up and fall. It abounds at the bottom of our pits.  But I desperately want to live in the wide space God has for me.  And I can only do that with Jesus, allowing him to transform me. Not simply by trying to fit a list of correct behaviours. 

That's not full redemption, it's behaviour control.

And so I do my bit, to position myself for transformation by relying on Him to help me be with Him.

Question

Where are you relying on your own willpower?

Prayer

Lord Jesus would you help us to live by your Spirit, in step with you, being continually transformed as you draw our gaze to you. In your precious name Jesus amen.